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US families step up to welcome Afghan refugees in their homes

September 13, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Kenneth and Adi Martinez have an extra bedroom in the home they share outside of Seattle with their 6-month-old son and 3-year-old daughter.

So when the Martinezes watched the coverage of tens of thousands of people fleeing Afghanistan last month as the Taliban took over, they stepped up to help.

The Martinezes opened their extra bedroom to a family of four who left Afghanistan with all of their belongings packed in a few bags. The mother is pregnant with her third child.

“They [told us] they were in the airplane when one of their friends contacted them and said the Taliban came,” said Adi Martinez. “I’m pretty sure their flight was one of the last to leave before the chaos began.”

For the past month, the two families from different parts of the world have assimilated, living and cooking together and watching their young children play together even as they speak different languages. The Martinezes have helped the family adjust to life in Seattle, including buying them coats and shoes to adjust to the cold.

“Even though we may think we don’t have a lot, we have an extra bedroom, we have the means and the resources and the ability to help,” said Kenneth Martinez. “We are happy that we can help.”

The Biden administration said as many as 95,000 refugees are expected to resettle in the United States from Afghanistan over the next year. U.S. military and diplomatic personnel withdrew from Afghanistan on Aug. 31, ending America’s 20 years of war in the country.

To be able to respond to the demand, the nine national U.S. refugee resettlement agencies that lead the process are having to work with community partners to find housing, according to Kristen Aster, director of client and community engagement with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), one of the nine agencies.

In some cases, people like the Martinez family are opening their homes for free to Afghan refugees. In other cases, local companies and individuals are offering places to rent.

“Given the large numbers of folks who are arriving right now, we are working with community members and private resources to have interim solutions,” said Aster. “That’s definitely been a great and critical lifeline as we work with these families to find them more permanent housing.”

“Then we work with the families to help them find jobs, to enroll their kids in school, and access medical care, to learn English, to get connected with volunteers and others in the community to help them navigate life in the United States,” she said. “All of that is with the goal of helping families to be self-sufficient and integrated as soon as possible.”

The Martinezes said their Christian faith as well as their own experience motivated them to help. The couple immigrated to the United States from Mexico in 2011 when Kenneth Martinez was offered a job with Microsoft.

“We know exactly what it feels like to come to a brand new country with no family or anything,” he said. “We know it can be difficult, and in the case [of Afghan refugees], it’s very difficult.”

For Fawn Johnson, a real estate developer in nearby Seattle, the realization she could help Afghan families in need came as she was watching news coverage of them fleeing their home country on U.S. military aircraft.

“One of [our] homes became vacant in July and as we saw more and more about what was going on in Afghanistan, we decided we wanted to use it to help refugees,” she said. “This was one thing we could actually put our hands-on and personally do something about.”

Johnson is now donating her property to be used as a temporary landing spot for refugees until they are able to move to more permanent housing.

When Johnson and her son and daughter, who work in the family business, asked for help from family and friends, a team of more than 100 volunteers stepped up to renovate the house in a matter of weeks and stock it with food, clothing, household supplies and toys.

A family of three, including an 18-month-old boy, arrived at the home on Aug. 23, and Johnson and other volunteers were there to greet them.

“We helped them carry in their luggage and they came in with everything they had,” she said. “It really hit us the few things that they brought with them and how we could carry of all that in just a trip or two.”

Describing the toddler’s reaction to his new home in the U.S., Johnson recalled, “The first thing he did when he came in was go right to where the toys are and he saw a ball. His father said that he loves balls and that he had one in Kabul that he had to leave behind.”

Johnson has stayed in touch with the family as they have settled into their home, including taking them to see the ocean for the first time and procuring bread from a local Afghan bakery so they would feel more at home.

She is now also working to help find jobs for the Afghan refugees resettling in the Seattle area.

“The husband in the house now has a degree in computer science,” said Johnson. “As he looks for jobs here, it’s difficult to make that transition, so we’re really hoping some of the big tech companies can step up and help people like him who have the education to work with them to get them employed.”

“The people that we are seeing are those who worked with U.S. military, who are well-educated and who are going to do a great deal to add to this country,” she said. “They will really be clearly adding to the culture and the economy and just the tapestry of the United States.”

Both Johnson and the Martinez family are volunteering their homes through World Relief, a Christian humanitarian organization whose Seattle office is working to resettle more than 100 Afghan refugees who have arrived in the past month.

“We have a pretty robust Afghan community in the Seattle area and most folks want to go where they have a tie, either a family member or friend,” Chitra Hanstad, executive director of World Relief Seattle, said of why the area is experiencing such an uptick. “I think it also has to do with the welcoming nature of Washington state. It makes it a great place for people to land, and there are a lot of job opportunities.”

The Afghan refugees arriving in the Seattle area typically come with just a suitcase or two and just over $1,000 in hand — through a U.S. government stipend — to start their new lives, according to Hanstad.

From there, World Relief steps in to help provide housing and supplies to start their lives in the U.S., including gift cards to local stores so the families can pick out their own belongings. The organization also provides long-term support like job placement, child care, social activities and language classes.

“We read research that you can learn language faster if you’re doing something that you’re good at or want to do, so we started an Afghan women’s sewing class and teach English through sewing,” said Hanstad, adding that the class also helps with the isolation refugees often feel. “We do it in a cohort model so these women get to know another group of women really well through those weeks of sewing.”

Hanstad said there has been a “huge uptick” recently of donations for Afghan refugees, but she worries about the months and years ahead as the refugees continue to build their lives in the U.S.

“I’ve been doing this work for years and I’ve seen that crises are short-lived. People move on to the next thing,” she said. “Really what we need desperately is funding so we can be flexible and agile.”

The huge need for help for Afghan refugees has prompted companies in the private sector to step up and help too.

Airbnb.org, for example, is providing temporary housing to 20,000 Afghan refugees worldwide, working with the International Rescue Committee to place refugees in housing available for rent.

Cameron Steele, a 30-year-old in Arlington, Virginia, found out in late August that his Airbnb property in Sacramento, California, would be rented via Airbnb.org and the International Rescue Committee to house a refugee family.

As he told his friends about the booking, an idea grew of how they could help the incoming Afghan family.

“One of my friends said, ‘If the family needs anything, let me know, I’m happy to support,'” said Steele. “That sparked an idea and I posted on Facebook and Instagram that I’d be hosting a family and if anyone wanted to [support] I’d make sure 100% was given to the family.”

Donations started pouring in, mostly in small amounts like $5 and $10, according to Steele.

Steele’s sister, Ashley Frost, who lives in Sacramento and helps him manage the Airbnb property, used the support to stock the house with supplies and leave the family a gift card so they could shop on their own.

“She spent hours collecting all the stuff for the family with the money that was given,” Steele said of Frost. “She went with her two daughters, my nieces, so it was neat to see her involving them in the process.”

When the first Afghan family moved on to more permanent housing and a second family moved in this week, Steele was also able to give them gift cards and supplies.

“It’s so difficult to leave everything you know, even if you know the opportunity is better for your kids and your family,” said Steele, who saw it firsthand through his girlfriend and her family, who are Armenian and immigrated to the U.S. “I know it’s not easy at all so it’s cool to just play a little role in adding some humanness to this whole experience and really showing them what we’re about.”

Steele said that in addition to helping them start their lives, he hopes the act of leaving donations for the Afghan families helps make them feel more at home in America.

“Little things like this hopefully make you feel like you made the right decision and you’re in the right place and it gives you hope, and that’s what we all need,” he said. “[Afghan refugees arriving in the U.S.] is a challenging thing for a lot of people — both for people moving here and for people feeling like people are coming into their communities — but it’s part of the American dream and the foundation of who we are as a country, as a people.”

“For this country specifically, we were all immigrants once,” said Steele.

School shooting survivors speak out on how their ‘Teenage Dream’ disappeared in new PSA

September 13, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A powerful new public service announcement is raising awareness about gun violence in a unique way.

Today, Sandy Hook Promise — a nonprofit organization led by several family members whose loved ones were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012 — released a video of survivors of school shootings reciting lyrics from Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” to show others that for victims of school shootings, the teenage dream is not what it used to be.

“It’s quite ironic, I think when you look at the lyrics,” Samantha Fuentes, a Parkland school shooting survivor who appears in the PSA, told “Good Morning America.” “It’s like the epitome of what you imagine — the typical teenage American life, the carefree worries of what that era of your experience is. So as a teenager who’s had all of that ripped from me — it’s almost like something that you wish that I could have.”

Fuentes added, “This story that I’ve experienced — my life is becoming more and more of a reality for people of my age.”

Living with the trauma

For Fuentes, the aftershock from the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, is something she still lives with each day.

“I’m now physically handicapped,” said Fuentes, who suffered leg injuries due to gunshot wounds as well as smaller injuries from shrapnel. “I have issues with mobility and getting around. I suffer from PTSD, depression, anxiety, insomnia. These are all things that I have to juggle on a daily basis.”

Aalayah Eastmond, who also survived the Parkland shooting and participated in the PSA, told “GMA” that she struggles each day with survivor’s guilt after her friend, Nicholas Dworet, sacrificed his life to save hers.

“I’m only here because of Nick,” said Eastmond, who explained that Nick’s body took the bullets that day as she hid underneath him. In the PSA, Eastmond honors Nick by holding up his photo.

”I have to navigate every single day — while also struggling and dealing with survivor’s guilt — which is the biggest hurdle to try and overcome in this process. So, it’s not easy at all, especially being young. You’re never prepared for something like this. There’s no handbook on how to survive a school shooting and what to do afterwards.”

Nick Walczak, a survivor of the 2012 mass shooting at Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio, said he now thinks three steps ahead wherever he goes in case he’s caught in another shooting.

“I have a plan in the back of my head almost everywhere I go now,” Walczak told “GMA.” “I have to figure out where I am and how to get out. And if I’m somewhere that has stairs or something, it’s very nerve-wracking because I am stuck there.”

Nine years ago, Walczak was at school when one of his classmates opened fire at him and three of his friends. Walczak was shot four times and the last bullet paralyzed him.

Despite the challenges that he has faced over the years, Walczak — as well as Fuentes and Eastmond — said they want others to know that shootings are preventable.

“The truth is that gun violence is in everybody’s backyard across the nation,” Fuentes said. “My hope is that people can make gun violence prevention a priority in their lives again, because people don’t realize that it’s folks like you and I, everyday people who went around thinking they wouldn’t be affected by something like this.”

Message for students returning to school

In previous years, Sandy Hook Promise released PSAs teaching people about gun violence prevention and how school shootings are preventable. But this year, as students return back to school, the nonprofit’s leaders said it was important to open up a conversation about how school shootings impact the lives of survivors.

“This has been a rather exceptional year and we’re facing a very different return to school,” said Sandy Hook Promise co-founder, Nicole Hockley, whose son, Dylan, was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy. “This time, I wanted to focus instead on the lived experiences of people, the aftereffects — because I don’t think people focus on what happens after a school shooting and how that impacts lives for decades.”

“I’m so grateful for all of those that survived and have the strength and fortitude to be able to share their stories, to help save the lives of someone else,” Hockley added.

According to a report released earlier this year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gun violence is the leading cause of death for teens, which is a concern facing many students returning to school this Fall.

“Our students are having feelings of loss of sense of safety, where that is different from past generations it’s a different experience,” Dr. Rachel Masi, a clinical psychologist and director of research at Sandy Hook Promise, said. “And if our kids are feeling anxious, worried, sad and depressed, which we know that they are at an increased level at this point. They’re not going to be able to learn.”

“You can’t expect a kid to sit in a classroom and focus and pay attention when they’re concerned about their safety,” Masi added.

Despite the trauma that students, teachers and families have experienced from past mass shootings at schools across the country, folks at Sandy Hook Promise and survivors like Fuentes, Eastmond and Walczk, are hopeful that change will happen.

“I know our generation has not been complacent with this issue. We’ve been having these conversations, forcing folks to sit down and recognize how important this problem is and how preventable it is,” Eastmond said. “I’m definitely hopeful that we will decrease gun violence.”

As students return to school this fall, Masi shared some tips to help students feel safer this school year. Read them below.

Prioritize mental health

“I think for teachers, they are that first line of defense in the school, they really know their students,” Masi said. “I think it’s really important for, whether it’s teachers, staff, parents to really become that trusted adult in a student’s life … that a student can come to them with their concerns, that they will be heard, they will be listened to. And their concerns will be taken seriously and they’ll get the support they need.”

Educate yourself

Another thing Masi encourages all teachers, parents and adults to do this school year as it begins for many students is to know the warning signs that people or students can exhibit before an act of violence is carried out.

“Nothing’s ever as simple as we see but there are things to do,” Masi said. “These are preventable and there’s ways to intervene.”

Have open conversations with students

With the reality of school shootings, Masi said it’s important to have open conversations with students about their concerns.

“Let’s bring it into the light and say these are the concerns that our kids are having,” said Masi. “These are real things they’re experiencing and the more we talk about it and the more we give those kids the voice to talk about it, the more that we’re going to see change.”

Mississippi abortion clinic warns Supreme Court against overturning Roe v. Wade

September 13, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The lone abortion clinic in Mississippi is warning the U.S. Supreme Court that any move to undermine a half-century of legal precedent affirming abortion rights would diminish the court’s credibility and lead to a national “upheaval” with sweeping consequences for millions of American women.

“People would be harmed, and chaos would ensue, even in states that claim not to be prohibiting abortion directly,” attorneys for Jackson Women’s Health wrote the court in a brief filed Monday.

The court later this year is expected to revisit a pair of longstanding but controversial decisions that have allowed states to regulate — but not ban — abortions before fetal viability, which is around 23-24 weeks, according to medical experts.

Mississippi passed a law in 2018 attempting to ban all abortions after 15 weeks, but lower courts blocked the measure citing Supreme Court precedent from Roe v. Wade in 1973 and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.

The state has asked the justices to overturn those decisions.

“Unless the court is to be perceived as representing nothing more than the preferences of its current membership, it is critical that judicial protection hold firm absent the most dramatic and unexpected changes in law or fact,” attorneys for the abortion providers wrote the court.

“Two generations (of women) — spanning almost five decades — have come to depend on the availability of legal abortion, and the right to make this decision has been further cemented as critical to gender equality,” they wrote.

The appeal comes on the heels of the court’s 5-4 decision this month allowing Texas to effectively ban most abortions across the state, despite what the majority called “serious questions” about the constitutionality of the law.

“While Texas is circumventing Roe and the Constitution, Mississippi is openly asking the court to overturn Roe,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing Jackson Women’s Health and is leading the legal challenge against SB8 in Texas.

“If the court grants Mississippi’s request to overturn Roe, large swaths of the South and Midwest — where abortion is already hard to access — will eliminate abortion completely,” she said.

Eleven states have passed so-called “trigger laws” that would immediately ban all or nearly all abortions if Roe were overturned, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

At the heart of the Mississippi case is a delicate balance the court has attempted to strike in its decisions over the years between a woman’s individual liberty and a state’s interest in protecting an unborn fetus.

The line devised by the court has been viability.

“Before that point, the court concluded, no state interest is strong enough to outweigh the woman’s liberty interest in deciding whether to carry her pregnancy to term,” attorneys for Jackson Women’s Health explained in their brief.

Mississippi has advocated for jettisoning the viability standard but, critics said, not proposed a clear alternative for the court to adopt instead.

“Scientific advances show that an unborn child has taken on the human form and features months before viability. States should be able to act on those developments,” the state told the court in July. “But Roe and Casey shackle states to a view of the facts that is decades out of date.”

Approximately 100 women per year in Mississippi seek abortions after 15 weeks, the clinic said in court documents. Jackson Women’s Health only performs abortions up to 16 weeks.

Attorneys for the clinic urge the justices to consider the human toll on millions of American women should they uphold the law or abolish Roe. They say forcing women to continue an unwanted pregnancy puts them at higher risk of health complications, emotional harm and financial strain.

“Accepting Mississippi’s request to abandon the viability line would turn back the clock for generations who have never known what it means to be without the fundamental right to make the decision whether to continue a pregnancy,” they write. “Until viability, a state may regulate, but not ban, abortion.”

Price increases expected on these grocery products through end of year

September 13, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — With the cost of meat and other grocery products in the U.S. steadily increasing since the onset of the pandemic, grocery retailers and the Biden administration have weighed in on the increases, which are expected to continue through the end of the year.

The spike on certain “food-at-home” categories has stores — already slammed by inflation and demand — setting sights on higher product prices through the end of the year.

On an earnings call Friday, Kroger CFO and senior vice president Gary Millerchip said the retailer will be “passing along higher cost to the customer where it makes sense to do so.”

The nation’s largest retail operator reported a year-over-year increase in produce, floral, deli and bakery sales, but Millerchip acknowledged they are juggling pressures such as higher supply chain costs coupled with the increase in theft that could drive prices in the second half of the year.

Last week, White House statistics revealed that meat constitutes half of food-at-home price increases and that, since December 2020, prices have surged on three main products — beef, which is up 14%, pork by 12% and poultry by 6.6%.

The data, supported by the latest Consumer Price Index Summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, found that the cost of meats, poultry, fish and eggs increased for the seventh straight month. The newest CPI statistics for August are expected to be released this week.

As many Americans buy groceries to cut costs on eating out and others cook at home to avoid contact with in-person dining, the demand for food from retailers has continued to grow.

The Biden-Harris administration noted in a release that it’s not just consumer habits driving the higher prices.

“Price increases are also driven by a lack of competition at a key bottleneck point in the meat supply chain: meat-processing,” the memo stated.

According to the White House, the four large conglomerates that control the majority of the market for these products “have been raising prices while generating record profits during the pandemic.”

The administration said it is “taking bold action to enforce the antitrust laws, boost competition in meat-processing, and push back on pandemic profiteering that is hurting consumers, farmers and ranchers across the country.”

Americans are preparing for fall, back to school, upcoming holidays and other food-related plans where retail prices will be an important index to keep an eye on.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett picking up ‘mores’ of Supreme Court, Breyer says

September 13, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Amy Coney Barrett found common ground Monday over shared concern that the nation’s highest court is increasingly viewed in ideological terms.

Barrett, in one of her first public speeches as a justice, told an audience Sunday in Kentucky that “this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks,” according to the Louisville Courier Journal.

Breyer, asked about those comments in an interview with the Washington Post on Monday, said that he agrees “with I think the approach is that she’s taking there.”

“As I’ve said, it takes some years and then you gradually pick up the mores of the institution. And the mores of the institution — you’re a judge, and you better be there for everybody,” said Breyer, the court’s oldest member and most senior liberal. “Even if a Democrat or Republican appointed you – you’re there as a judge.”

Barrett appeared to echo that sentiment in her speech, telling the audience that differences among “judicial philosophies are not the same as political parties.”

Her message may have been undercut, however, by the fact that the event was hosted by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell inside an academic center named in his honor. Several progressive legal groups and independent judicial watchdogs criticized the optics.

“If Justice Barrett wants the Supreme Court not to be seen as partisan, she should avoid being hosted by a center named after the most partisan person in America,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix The Court, a nonpartisan advocacy group. “There’s value in members of the high court speaking to audiences outside of Washington, but that concept is corrupted when stretched to rationalize appearing at events that look and sound like political pep rallies.”

Breyer was not asked about and did not comment on the connection with McConnell. His appearance came as part of a media tour for his new book, “The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics.”

The public defense of the court as a nonpartisan institution comes at a fraught time for the justices and their credibility. The Court’s approval rating has dipped below 50% for the first time since 2017 and down 9-points from a decade high just last year, according to Gallup.

This month, the court became embroiled in a dramatic and highly divisive debate over abortion in Texas, after refusing to block an unprecedented law that effectively outlaws the procedure across the state by a narrow 5-4 vote.

Barrett voted with the majority; Breyer dissented.

“The timing wasn’t very good for my book because it’s pretty hard to believe when a case like those come along that we’re less divided than you might think,” Breyer lamented.

“A lot of people will strongly disagree with many of the opinions or dissents that you write, but still, internally, you must feel that this is not a political institution, that this is an institution that’s there for every American,” he said.

Biden to survey California fire damage as he urges action on climate change

September 13, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — President Joe Biden on Monday was making his first visit to the West Coast as president, with plans to survey wildfire damage and push for action on combatting climate change.

Biden planned to first stop in Boise, Idaho, to visit the National Interagency Fire Center — which coordinates the federal government’s response to wildfires — before traveling to the Sacramento, Calif., area to view the impact of the Caldor Fire and receive a briefing from local officials.

The president has used recent natural disasters to show the urgency of climate change and its deadly effects on the American people, pitching his massive spending plan as a way to rebuild infrastructure in a greener, cleaner, more resilient manner. This month, he has visited Louisiana, New Jersey and New York to see the impact of Hurricane Ida and its remnants.

The White House and Democratic leaders in Congress hope to pass two major bills by the end of the month that, together, would make hundreds of billions of dollars available for developing clean energy, rebuilding physical infrastructure to make it withstand more extreme weather events, and electrifying the federal fleet of vehicles.

The larger bill — the price tag and contents of which have been subject to Democratic infighting — would devote $135 billion to preventing wildfires, dealing with droughts, and promoting clean energy in rural communities, among other things.

After an aerial tour of the Caldor Fire’s impact on El Dorado County, Calif., Biden plans to deliver remarks on his administration’s response to recent wildfires and how his spending proposals “will strengthen our nation’s resilience to climate change and extreme weather events,” according to the White House.

He then plans to travel to Long Beach, Calif., to speak at a Monday evening campaign rally with Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat facing a recall election in which voting ends Tuesday.

“Today, the president’s showing how nature will take its course if we don’t act and we don’t start investing,” White House national climate adviser Gina McCarthy said in an interview with CNN on Monday.

Man arrested with weapons near DNC headquarters: Capitol Police

September 13, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — United States Capitol Police said Monday they arrested a man in a truck who was armed with multiple knives, a bayonet and a machete near the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington.

A Special Operation Division Officer noticed a Dodge Dakota pickup truck with a swastika and other white supremacist symbols painted on it while on patrol around midnight outside of the DNC, according to a press release from U.S. Capitol Police. The truck allegedly had a picture of an American flag where the license plate should have been.

Capitol Police say Donald Craighead, a 44-year-old man from California told them “he was “on patrol” and began talking about white supremacist ideology and other rhetoric pertaining to white supremacy.”

He was arrested on prohibited weapons charges.

“This is good police work plain and simple,” said Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger. “We applaud the officers’ keen observation and the teamwork that resulted in this arrest.”

It is unclear if he was attempting to attend any upcoming demonstrations, Capitol Police said.

The development comes as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called a briefing for lawmakers from U.S. Capitol Police on Monday concerning ongoing security threats ahead of a planned demonstration at the Capitol on Saturday in support of those arrested during the Jan. 6 attack.

Fencing outside U.S. Capitol is expected to return ahead of the “Justice for J6” rally, a source familiar with the plans confirmed to ABC News.

The fencing, erected after Jan. 6, was removed in July.

How one woman brought makeovers, food and love to Los Angeles’ homeless community

September 13, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(LOS ANGELES) — Every weekend, Shirley Raines gets up early to head to Skid Row, a neighborhood in Downtown Los Angeles known for its struggles with homelessness and poverty.

At Skid Row, Raines wears many different hats: she’s a makeup artist, a hair technician, a provider and a mother figure. She gives makeovers, dyes hair, hands out food and sends her clients off with a warm, “I love you.”

Beauty 2 The Streetz, a group started by Raines herself, has served hundreds, if not thousands, of homeless people in the region for six years. She and her team provide those in need with hot showers, hygiene products and other necessities to make life easier for those living on the streets.

Raines has begun documenting her work, and the stories of the people she serves, on social media, earning millions of views and likes on TikTok. In the comments section, she fends off stigma against homeless and impoverished communities. But she hopes her videos remind viewers that her clients are just as deserving of love, happiness and a good life.

“I would like for people to understand and know that at any given time, this could be you,” Raines said, referring to those living with homelessness. “How come we taught society that these people are to be blamed for their circumstances?”

How Beauty 2 The Streetz began

In 1987, Raines lost her son Demetrius just days before his third birthday. She spent years mourning, looking for answers to her loss and pain.

Six years ago, in an effort to make sense of her grief, she stumbled upon a friend at church who was off to feed the homeless and invited her along. That was the start of Raines’s path to Beauty 2 The Streetz.

“I think it just hit me — that I’ve got to do something with this pain,” Raines said. “I never expected this work to be so healing for me.”

She continued her work at Skid Row with a local charity organization at first, and soon enough, she was known as the “makeup lady.” Raines always rolled up with a full face of makeup and a head of colorful hair when she volunteered. It quickly grabbed the attention of her clients.

She began to provide hair and makeup services herself, fully funded with her own money. And though the makeup and hair skills of her and her team help others look and feel great, she says it’s the connections and friendships that keep her clients coming back.

“I really, really in my heart do not think it’s the hair color or the makeup, I think it’s the time that someone spends with them,” Raines said. “It’s the time that someone spends touching them, it’s the time someone spends catering to them. … A lot of people don’t even look in the mirror, girl!”

There’s a brightness in their eyes when they walk away from the salon chair. That joy is healing for Raines, but she also knows that’s not enough.

Though she offers help and assistance in the ways that she can, she is adamant that local officials do the work to address systemic issues of poverty, addiction and violence that plague the neighborhood.

Improving Skid Row

Skid Row has one of the largest stable homeless populations in the United States, with roughly 3,000 homeless people out on the streets, according to the Community Redevelopment Agency of the city of Los Angeles.

It’s a heavily condensed area; the Community Redevelopment Agency reports that the neighborhood contains roughly 3% of the county’s homeless population, yet it makes up only 0.0001% of the county’s total land area.

“It’s one of the most dangerous areas in Los Angeles,” Raines said. “It’s considered toxic, it’s considered an area that’s filled with dangerous people and people who have been dismissed by life.”

But she denounces that understanding of the Skid Row community, a fact evident in her TikTok videos, which she hopes can crush the stereotypes and preconceived notions of homeless people that her viewers have.

Kirkpatrick Tyler, director of Skid Row Strategy at the Mayor’s Office of Public Engagement, said that the work to improve Skid Row and the conditions of life there is ongoing.

Tyler said initiatives on mental health care, substance abuse rehabilitation, violence and affordable housing are in progress, building on years of attempts to address these issues. He said community members are helping lead the discussions on how to move the city forward.

“Skid Row is full of vibrant people with big hearts that believe in themselves, that believe in one another, and that are committed and dedicated to transforming that community,” Tyler said.

“For our office, that was actually one of the first things that we had to address — that we were no longer going to speak about Skid Row as an area in downtown that had a homeless problem, that we would speak about Skid Row as a community,” he added.

He said efforts like Raines’ help give people that human connection that makes the neighborhood the community that it is.

Turning strangers into friends

Every time she hands out food or works on someone’s hair, Raines tells her clients that she loves them. She never expected them to say it back, but since her son’s death, she knew how important and impactful those words can be.

“I love you” were some of the last words she told her son before he died. Now, those words are said back to her every time she heads to Skid Row.

“It’s so funny when I watch back videos, there are random strangers coming to my window like, ‘OK, love you, see you next week.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, OK, love you too,'” Raines said, laughing. “It just feels good, because I know how hard it is to trust when life hasn’t been kind to you, people haven’t been kind to you.”

And though nothing can heal the wound of a lost child, Raines said she finds solace and recovery in her work. She reminds her viewers to have compassion for people experiencing homelessness — and to give back to those in need as much as possible.

She thanks the many donors on social media who have already helped her fund the initiative.

“We think that they’re a burden to society but they’re not a burden to society. Society is a burden to them,” Raines said. “The goal in life is not to have as much as you can; the goal in life is to give as much as you can.”

Chinese government cracking down on K-pop fandom

September 13, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(SEOUL, South Korea) — Fourteen content providers in China including Tencent and Weibo are promising a “healthy” cyberspace environment as Chinese authorities expand control over the entertainment industry.

The China Association of Performing Arts, an organization affiliated with the Chinese government, summoned representatives from content providers last Friday to discuss ways to promote contents with positive values in order to “clear” the cyberspace.

“The platforms would strengthen their management of accounts and restrict those that spread baseless star gossip or stir up conflicts between fan groups,” the association said on its WeChat statement Saturday, just a week after China’s major microblogging platform, Sina Weibo, restricted the use of 21 fan club accounts.

Weibo’s crackdown on fan accounts took place shortly after an extravagant birthday celebration event for a K-pop star went viral on Twitter on Sept. 5. Fans following the Weibo account “JiMIN JMC,” a fan community for BTS member Jimin, raised money to plaster an airplane with his photo. Weibo blocked the fan page from writing new posts for 60 days, explaining that the procedure for collecting money was not legitimate.

“Irrational star-chasing behavior, when found, should be dealt with seriously,” Weibo said on its official website, referring to the fundraising activities of fandoms. “The company promptly banned 21 accounts for 30 days, and erased related inappropriate posts.”

The statement also said that stricter oversight of the fan groups would “purify” the online atmosphere and fulfill the platform’s responsibilities to society.

“Since China is a one-party state under a strict communist ideology, other social media companies will follow suit without any resistance once the authorities take control of one large company,” Kim Hern-sik, a commentator who studies and analyzes K-pop, told ABC News. “[For] Weibo, being the most influential social media in China, there will be setbacks in selling K-pop goods and keeping up online fan communities within the country.”

The Chinese government has been clear that it intends to have pop culture under control this year. Last month, the Cyberspace Administration of China posted a guideline to take care of “disorderly fandom management.” The guidelines include restricting minors from spending money on fan club activities and giving entertainment agencies the responsibility of managing fan clubs. There is strong solidarity among fan-made communities on Weibo and Twitter that raise funds for birthday events and gifts for celebrities, but the Chinese government depicted the particular fan culture as “chaotic.”

“Do not induce fans to consume. One should not organize contests to encourage or stimulate consumption,” the Cyberspace Administration of China clearly states in its guidelines published on Aug. 27. China’s National Radio and Television Administration went on to ban broadcasters and internet platforms from organizing “marketing activities to stimulate fan consumption” in a notice on Sept. 2.

Following the announcements, QQ Music and Tencent’s music streaming service in China decided to restrict customers from purchasing more than one copy of an album online.

Album sales are considered an index of popularity for pop stars. According to the South Korean music chart Hanteo, China had the third largest share of K-pop album sales verified on the Hanteo website in the first half of 2021 among 96 countries, following the U.S. and Malaysia.

The largest Twitter fan community of BLACK PINK member Lisa informed followers it would not be able to order as many copies of Lisa’s new album as planned.

“As we are writing this, we are sorry to inform you that we may not be able to order as many copies as we had expected. We have run into unexpected obstacles with tightened restrictions on fan clubs,” the account said in a tweet Aug. 31.

Last Thursday, China’s National Radio and Television Administration announced that Chinese media should stop effeminate male celebrities as well as celebrities who are not politically vocal from appearing on television.

“Tackling down people’s fan community participation cannot be finished at one stroke, but it seems the Chinese authorities will continue expanding its influence step by step,” Kweon Sang Hee, a professor at Sungkyunkwan University, told ABC News.

How National Guard members are helping hospitals on the brink during delta surge

September 13, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Maj. W. Chris Clyne/Oregon National Guard

(NEW YORK) — When Lt. Nathan Brashear saw the call for National Guard service members to help as hospitals were reaching a crisis point during Kentucky’s delta surge, he didn’t hesitate to volunteer.

For about two weeks, Brashear, a member of the Kentucky Army National Guard, has been leading a team of 30 National Guard members at The Medical Center at Bowling Green, doing “everything little thing” they can to help give the hospital staff a much-needed break.

“That’s one thing that makes this mission so important to us as soldiers,” Brashear, who was a deputy jailor before he went on active-duty orders, told ABC News. “We live and work in these communities. So for us to be able to support the communities is something that really impacts us.”

In recent weeks, several states have deployed hundreds of National Guard service members to help overwhelmed and understaffed hospitals, as COVID-19 hospitalization rates have reached points not seen during the pandemic.

The service members are not doing clinical work, but instead offering administrative and logistical support so hospital staff can focus on patient care. That could be anything from taking patients to appointments to cleaning beds to serving and clearing food.

“This is really the latest in demonstrated need that we’re seeing, obviously across the state and nation, that a lot of these hospitals are feeling the strain — both increased patients and a decrease in the available personnel to really help take care of everybody,” Lt. Col. Stephen Martin, director of public affairs for the Kentucky National Guard, told ABC News. “Our main mission there is really just to offload the logistical and administrative support that those hospitals have so that the full-timers there can better care for the needs of the patients that are coming in.”

The Kentucky National Guard was winding down its pandemic response, which has included helping set up drive-through COVID-19 testing sites and assisting food banks, when, about three weeks ago, it was called for the first time during the pandemic to assist hospitals overburdened by COVID-19 patients — most of them unvaccinated.

The size of National Guard teams and length of their deployment varies by hospital size and demand, and will stay as long as they can in whatever capacity is needed, Martin said.

“We as Guardsmen fancy ourselves as Swiss Army knives. We’ve got multiple skillsets, not only in what we’re trained on but being able to accomplish the mission before us,” he said. “We can send a small team into the hospital and say, ‘Here’s your left and right limits, these are the things that we want you to focus on and provide support to, and more than anything, just help these folks out.'”

“They’re in a bad way and we’re really just helping to alleviate that workload for a little it, let them catch their breath and catch up and really focus on the needs of the patients in the hospital,” he added.

Over two-thirds of Kentucky hospitals have critical staffing shortages as they’re overrun with COVID-19 patients, and doctors are “quickly approaching” the point where they would need to ration care, Gov. Andy Beshear told CNN on Wednesday.

More than 100 soldiers and airmen had already been deployed to four hospitals, including The Medical Center at Bowling Green, when Beshear announced Friday that over 300 more will be sent to 21 additional hospitals in the state’s largest-ever National Guard deployment for a health crisis.

“Our hospitals are at a breaking point,” Beshear said during a COVID-19 briefing Friday. “We have 93 total ICU beds left statewide. That is one of the lowest numbers, I think they would tell you, in our lifetime.”

The announcement came a day after Kentucky set new records for its statewide COVID-19 testing positivity rate, reaching 14%, and the number of patients on ventilators, the governor said.

Kentucky is not the only state to turn to the National Guard for COVID-19-related hospital support in recent weeks.

Late last month, Idaho Gov. Brad Little announced the state was deploying up to 150 Guardsmen, among other personnel, to help overwhelmed hospitals.

More than 600 patients are hospitalized with COVID-19 in Idaho, the highest on record for the state, as the number of intensive care unit beds dwindles and hospital staff are stretched thin. On Tuesday, Idaho public health leaders announced they had activated “crisis standards of care” for the state’s northern hospitals, enabling them to ration care.

In Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown announced last month she was deploying up to 1,500 National Guard members to hospitals around the state to provide support.

The service members have been met by applause by grateful health care workers as they’ve arrived at their hospitals.

Over the past few weeks, they’ve helped with nonclinical tasks, including screening visitors at hospital entrances, manning COVID-19 hotlines and changing patients’ bedding in the ICU.

Some have even used their talents to boost morale. Senior Airman Skadi Freyr of the Oregon National Guard has been playing piano during her lunch break while working at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

“A beautiful moment of someone in uniform who was blessing us on her break with some beautiful music, which really was grounding for me, to remind me of the beauty and the good in the midst of this really hard time,” OHSU oncology social worker Jen Smith told the Oregon National Guard last week.

Freyr said she doesn’t have any plans to stop playing after seeing the impact on staff.

“Now that I’ve seen that it has such a good sort of healing effect on people, it makes me more driven to do it, because I know that it’s really gonna just help them,” she said. “And I really like to be of service.”

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